Adrianne Richardson/Contributing Writer
Leaving home for the first time and moving in with a roommate, or three, is not the easiest transition to make.
But as a matter of courtesy and respect, don’t force your roommate to stare at a pile of clothes, your overflowing drawers and miscellaneous knickknacks.
“I believe that just moving to college in general, people tend to over pack because it’s their first time being truly away from home for a long period of time and there is really no way you can prepare for it. So I guess it does make the housing residences cluttered,” said freshman Jakari Clayton, psychology major and resident of Panther Hall.
We’ve all tried to maintain a space similar to the one that we have at home, in our bedroom, bathroom or kitchen.
But when you have a roommate, you have to respect their space and understand that you aren’t living at home anymore. Your belongings have to fit on your half of the room, not yours and your roommate’s.
Students need to understand this before moving into a dorm or apartment in order to make living arrangements on campus a lot easier. Unfortunately all of us didn’t come with this understanding and even after being on campus for a while, still fail to understand this very important concept.
My personal experience with Panther Hall dorms is that everything that you need is there, but not everything you want. That is how it is supposed to be; it’s college. But then you see everyone bringing their whole lives with them to move into a cubby hole and then the room looks cluttered, becomes harder to maintain and harder to study in with so many distractions.
It is okay if you have made the mistake of over packing because it was your first time being away from home, but as the semester goes on more items should not be added to your side of the cubbyhole nor your roommates. We should learn that respecting another individual’s space is needed when the residence is being shared between two to four individuals at a time.
Paying $4,303 per semester for a room that you aren’t comfortable in because you have slight signs of claustrophobia isn’t any way to live, especially when you have other things to worry about like research papers and exams.
The moral here is simple: I respect your space and you respect mine.
